


the weight of worthiness

by esmeraldablazingsky



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Mablung Lives, Sack of Menegroth, how fluffy can this be when people are dying in the background? we'll see, un-graphic depictions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 04:31:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18161513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esmeraldablazingsky/pseuds/esmeraldablazingsky
Summary: He didn’t want to think about what Nellas was asking him. Why, the look on her face asked. Why did you resign yourself to death without truly believing it was right?Or: the death of loyalty, and a friend to help cope with it.





	the weight of worthiness

Mablung stood before the vault alone, backed up against the door. They were dead, everyone was dead around him, and despair threatened to crush his heart right there in his chest, but he stood ready to fight nonetheless. He knew, he knew the Dwarves had a right to the Nauglamír, and that they would get it once they had killed him too, but he wasn’t ready to stand down. 

If he didn’t have fealty, what did he have, even if it was fealty to a king gone awry? He shifted his grip on his weapon and braced for death. 

An axe rose, too heavy and too large for Mablung to block, and suddenly there was a blur of motion and the axe hit stone. 

Mablung felt the wind get knocked out of him by something swift and lithe, which then proceeded to grab him by the arm and drag him away from the vault and away from danger with shocking speed. 

“What in the name of Varda Elbereth—” 

—Are you doing, he meant to finish, but his rescuer stopped to let him regain his footing and he cut himself off, blinking. 

“Nellas?” he said, incredulously. 

“Run!” was her reply, and Mablung decided to heed it. 

“I’m sorry!” shouted Nellas as she dashed through the gruesome mess that was the halls of Menegroth. Who she was yelling to, it wasn’t quite clear. Maybe it was the Dwarves, maybe it was Mablung himself, maybe it was the world at large, which Nellas clearly hoped would spare them. In any case, Mablung couldn’t help but feel a growing wave of shame threatening to swallow him. Nellas had averted more bloodshed by the simple act of flinging herself down a hallway at him, but he had not had the strength of conviction to avoid the accursed fighting in the first place. 

She was a better person than him, thought Mablung. He would tell her when they were safe. 

Nellas led him into the woods, running until it was silent but for their own footsteps, then came to a halt and turned to face him. Her eyes were wide and dark and looked almost hurt, and Mablung bowed his head. 

“Why,” was all she said. The way her hands hung at her sides betrayed worry and fear and bewilderment all mixed into a swirl of ill feelings that Mablung could sense hanging in the air. 

“What do you mean?” asked Mablung. His throat felt curiously dry all of a sudden, and he swallowed hard. He didn’t want to think about what Nellas was asking him. Why, the look on her face asked. Why did you resign yourself to death without truly believing it was right? 

Mablung didn’t have an answer for that. Some sort of misplaced sense of duty, maybe, a chain that he wore proudly until the moment when he became helpless against its pull. He said nothing, but knew that Nellas heard it all anyways. 

“I mean why,” she said, fidgeting with her sleeves, “why do you do that? It’s not just now, just this time. I know you, but I don’t understand you.”

“Loyalty is a powerful thing,” whispered Mablung. Nellas’ eyes flashed and she made a movement with her hands like she was going to say something but couldn’t find the words. She bit her lip, and made another wild gesture, looking at Mablung as if willing him to hear what she was saying and understand it. 

Finally, she gave up and hugged him instead, heedless of the blade still in his hand. 

This is not loyalty, said the way her arms interlocked around his waist. This is something else, and I want it out and away from you. 

“I’ve failed so many times,” said Mablung, his voice cracking against his will. “I have said and done the wrong things time and time again and the King and Queen always forgave me. I owe them my allegiance in whatever I can offer, even if it costs my life.” 

“You owe nothing,” said Nellas, her voice muffled in Mablung’s clothes but losing none of its fierceness. “Least of all your life for forgiveness. Truly, what impossible tasks do you expect yourself to complete before you believe your own worth?” 

There was a pause, in which Mablung said nothing and thought only of the people he had lost to the wilderness and the workings of the Enemy, and then Nellas spoke again, gentler this time. 

“But if you want forgiveness,” she said, “I’ll go with you. Melian is— she’s still there, I think.” She did not say 'still alive.' 

“And what?” asked Mablung with a laugh that felt like ice in his chest. “I can apologize for the death of her husband and the loss of the Nauglamír and my failure to stand strong?” 

“Tell her it was my fault,” said Nellas. “Tell her you saved me.” 

“I didn’t,” said Mablung. 

“Then tell her the truth,” said Nellas. “She won’t be mad. You just tell yourself that.” 

Mablung sighed. 

“You’re a better person than I am, Nellas,” he said. She made a noise of dissent and squeezed him tighter for a few seconds before letting go. 

“You just tell yourself a lot of things,” she said by way of answer. Most of the sounds of fighting in the distance had ceased, and Mablung guessed the Dwarves had left after finding what they came for. It had been avoidable, it had all been avoidable, and the realization settled like another insurmountably heavy weight on his shoulders. He took a deep breath, let it out, and set off back towards Menegroth. He would patch things up, fix what he could not stop in the first place, and then he would seek Melian. 

Thankfully, most of Mablung’s uncertainty was crowded out by the finely tuned instinct to seek out those he could help and do what he could, and at his orders, the shell-shocked survivors coalesced into an organized team. Nellas flinched at the people, and the blood, and the noise, but she stayed nonetheless, binding wounds without a word. Mablung took off his cloak and fastened it around her shoulders, recalling the way she hid behind him when startled, and her grateful glance made him feel like maybe not all was for naught. 

“I think they’re okay now,” she whispered, tugging at Mablung’s sleeve when blood had been staunched and fear allayed. “Your turn now.” 

Around Melian, things were quiet. It was how one knew they were approaching her— a feeling, lingering in the air, one that conveyed safety and a strange kind of awe. But it was tinged now with the withering grief that sometimes took the hearts of Elves, and Mablung paused before her doors. 

“Go on,” said Nellas, nudging him. 

“And you?” asked Mablung. Nellas shook her head vigorously. 

“If I meet the Queen’s eyes, I shall surely die where I stand,” she said, which Mablung understood was her peculiar brand of intense shyness. 

Well, then, he wouldn’t force her. What was a warrior, if not brave enough to face his queen alone in good faith? 

The sight of Melian alone, vivid as ever and yet somehow drained of color, chilled Mablung to the bone. Her hair was loose and flowed from her shoulders to the floor, and she hardly looked up when Mablung came in. Look up she did, however, and despite her sadness her eyes were warm. 

“I’m sorry,” said Mablung. 

“You did all you could,” was Melian’s reply, as gentle and as painful as it had been the first time she said it. “There is nothing to regret here, for you. The power of the Silmaril is beyond me, and was beyond my husband too. You need follow a king no longer, for yours is dead.” 

“My lady,” said Mablung. 

“Go where you will,” said Melian. It was not a question. Mablung knew that the dying of a Maia was not a sight to watch, and he gave a choked nod and turned away on leaden legs. 

Nellas was waiting for him, her expression making clear that she had heard everything. 

“There you go,” she said softly. “You are forgiven, but you did not need it.” 

“I am free to go,” said Mablung blankly. Free to go, but he didn’t know where. 

“That you are,” said Nellas, her eyes gleaming with a strangely vindicated sort of light. “No leader to throw your life away for.” 

They had wandered back into the section of Menegroth they’d been in before, where one of the halls had been turned into an enormous triage center, and slowly Mablung began to realize that eyes all around were rising to rest on him. 

“If you’re going to tie yourself to anything,” said Nellas, “you should choose for yourself, this time.” She was hiding behind Mablung, wrapped up in his cloak still, but when he looked back at her he knew she was smiling. 

Well, thought Mablung, he could do that. And as questions started to come, and the shattered remnants of Doriath turned to him for help, he was free to answer them.

**Author's Note:**

> I did not edit this, bear with me. I do, however, love and appreciate both Nellas and Mablung


End file.
